Windows Phone 8 Development Internals (Preview 1) available now

To celebrate Windows Phone 8 and //build/, Microsoft Press is making Windows Phone 8 Development Internals available in two preview digital editions—plus the final ebook, when ready—at special promotional pricing. Purchase between October 30 and November 5, 2012, and your cost is just $10 for the two preview editions and the final ebook! (This is similar to our approach with Charles Petzold’s Programming Windows, Sixth Edition.)

Written by two members of the Windows Phone 8 team—Andrew Whitechapel and Sean McKenna—Windows Phone 8 Development Internals gives you an in-depth look into how the new Windows Phone 8 platform works, how it differs from Windows Phone 7.x, and how you can take advantage of the platform to build apps and games that you can sell through the Windows Store to reach millions of customers directly. Significantly, Windows Phone 8 not only offers managed development in C# and Visual Basic but also adds native development in C/C++. (By the way, check out the fabulous reviews for Andrew's Windows Phone 7 Development Internals.)

This book is intended to help existing developers understand the core concepts, the significant programmable feature areas, and the major techniques in Windows Phone development. The book is tailored for existing C# and C++ developers that want to get up to speed rapidly with the Windows Phone platform. Developers experienced with other mobile platforms will find this book invaluable in learning the ins and outs of Microsoft’s operating system and will find the chapters that focus on native development an easy transition. For the chapters that focus on managed development, native developers will likely need additional resources to pick up the C# and XAML languages.

The basic architecture of the platform is covered in Chapter 1, “Vision and Architecture,” and most chapters go deeply into the internal behavior of the system. This is knowledge that helps to round out your understanding of the platform and inform your design decisions, even though, in some cases, the internal details have no immediate impact on the exposed API.

This book is divided into four sections:

Section I – Core Features

Section II – Windows Phone 7 to Windows Phone 8

Section III – New Windows Phone 8 Features

Section IV – Native Development with Windows Phone 8

As of this writing, there are many more Windows Phone 7 phones in existence than Windows Phone 8 phones. The Windows Phone Store contains well over 100,000 apps, all of which target Windows Phone 7. For this reason, the first 10 chapters focus on the basic infrastructure, programming model, and the core features that are common to both versions. Where there are material differences, these are called out, with references to the later chapter where the 8.0 behavior is explained in detail.

Next, Section II covers both the features that are significantly different between version 7 and version 8. This section also covers the process of porting apps from version 7 to version 8, as well as how to develop new apps that target both versions.

Section III covers the major new features in version 8 that did not exist in version 7. These include speech functionality, wallet, in-app purchase, and enterprise applications.

Finally, while the first three sections concentrate on managed development, Section IV focuses purely on native development. This section includes coverage of native-managed interop, convergence between Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8, threading, and integration with the Windows Phone platform via native code.

Chapters Included in Preview 1

Chapter 1: Vision and Architecture

Chapter 2: App Model and Navigation

Chapter 4: Data Binding and MVVM

Chapter 12: Tiles and Notification

Chapter 16: Location and Maps

Chapter 17: Speech

Pricing and Publication Schedule

Windows Phone 8 Development Internals eBook Version

Price

Time Period

Preview 1

$10

October 30 to November 5, 2012 (one week only)

Note: Currently available in PDF format; EPUB & MOBI will follow about a week later. You will be notified when those formats are available for download.

Preview 1 (same content as above, no updates)

$20

November 6, 2012 until release of the Preview 2 eBook (currently scheduled to be December 11)

Preview 2

$30

December 11 to December 17, 2012 (one week only)

Preview 2 (same content as above, no updates)

$40

December 18, 2012 until release of the Final eBook (currently scheduled to be February 24, 2013)

Final eBook

$50

February 24, 2013 (or when the Final eBook publishes) through life of edition

Purchase Examples

Example 1: If you purchase the Preview 1 edition for Windows Phone 8 Development Internals on October 30, 2012, you will receive Preview 1, Preview 2 when released, and the final eBook when released—all for $10.

Example 2: If you purchase the Preview 2 edition for Windows Phone 8 Development Internals on December 18, 2012 (after the one-week $30 promotion has ended), you will receive it and the final eBook for $40.

I would love to take you up on this offer. Are you offering along with this a time machine to go back to the day when it's available? I received the offer (good between October 30 and November 5) on November 22.

Jeff Angelo

22 Nov 2012 8:49 AM

This would be a great offer it I had received it before TODAY.

The Claw

22 Nov 2012 2:28 PM

Mary, Jeff, you do realize you can still get this for $20, rather than the list price of $50 when it officially launches?